


Wednesday’s Child

by wishonadarkstar



Series: Legacies [1]
Category: Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Birth, Breastfeeding, F/M, Gen, Introspection, Motherhood, Names
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-14
Updated: 2018-08-14
Packaged: 2019-06-27 03:31:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15677151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wishonadarkstar/pseuds/wishonadarkstar
Summary: Of the thirteen hours Leia spent in labor, seven of them were in a political arena, sparring with words and grandstanding on the level she’d been born to, and another three were spent in a celebratory banquet where she clutched at her water glass and her sanity with increasing determination.





	Wednesday’s Child

When Leia went into labor the morning she was meant to sign the treaty that would finally end the war, her first thought was a deep abiding regret.

She’d been born on Empire Day, and she had spent her whole life intimately aware of that fact.

It wasn’t a legacy she would have wished on her son, but it would be the legacy he had, forever.

This was the first of two secrets she would keep to her funeral pyre about the birth of her only child.

She allowed herself a count of five to grieve for something that everyone else in the entire galaxy was about to find auspicious, and then she took off the dress she’d wanted to wear, looked at the mess from her water breaking, and sighed.

When Mon Mothma came to get her, what she said was; “Even the baby thought you were right about my dress.”

Mon Mothma had insisted that Leia wear anything but white, because this was the end of a war, and white was a warrior’s color.

Leia had brought the dress she’d been wearing the day Alderaan had died, mended and tailored for her pregnancy, because she would never trust the Empire, not for this treaty, not for any treaty, and she had wanted them to know that.

Mon Mothma had laughed.

Of the thirteen hours Leia spent in labor, seven of them were in a political arena, sparring with words and grandstanding on the level she’d been born to, and another three were spent in a celebratory banquet where she clutched at her water glass and her sanity with increasing determination.

Embarrassingly enough, she didn’t make it through the entire thing, and it was the Imperial Grand Vizier who caught her before she could hit the ground.

“Is it poison?” he demanded, reaching with long practice for a blaster that wasn’t there, scanning their surroundings for a threat that didn’t exist.

“No,” Leia gasped. It cut off into a moan, and the Grand Vizier had been through a long and storied life, and as soon as her hand tightened around his and her other hand went to her gravid belly, he realized his mistake.

His face softened, and he settled her on the floor. “Clear the room,” he snapped with the ease of long command. “Bring a medical team at once. It appears that the General has gone into labor.”

Leia couldn’t make herself let go of his hand, and he let her hold on even once the medical droid came and dosed her with an analgesic.

“Breathe,” he told her as her son was born and she gripped his hand tight. “Breathe, General.”

The second secret was that she was glad the Grand Vizier had stayed. 

***

Mon Mothma had helped her pick out appropriate names, an exercise that had taken up most of the pregnancy, scraps of flimsi and screaming matches over what was appropriate filling her free hours even while she worked tirelessly to create a new republic and destroy the remnants of an empire. Han knew nothing of this, _could_ know nothing of it, because he would never understand why he couldn’t just have a son called Han Solo II or maybe Bail Solo after _her_ father. 

She’d known since she’d first discovered her pregnancy that absolutely nothing of this child would be hers alone, but she’d put her foot down in one way: her son might be named for heroes of the Old Republic, and her son might _need_ to have her name alongside his father’s, but Naberrie was critical.

She and Luke had spent what little free time they’d had discovering every secret of their birth mother, a woman of power and grace who had kept her regnant name to become Senator and steer the republic as best she knew how.

Only her closest friends had called her by her given name, Padmé, and almost no one at all remembered that she’d been Naberrie before she’d been Amidala.

Obi-Wan Skywalker Naberrie Organa-Solo’s name was public knowledge almost before the cord was cut, and Leia half expected the galactic scrutiny to unearth the truth, for a secret and forbidden love affair between a Jedi and a Senator to be the next big news, but somehow, among the names of heroes of past and present, no one cared about the name Naberrie.

It seemed most people cared only about fatherhood and Leia’s heritage was no different. She shivered to think of what might happen if the galaxy learned just who Anakin Skywalker had become on Empire Day, but that was something to dread for the future.

Han came into their apartment still bleeding from his latest run in with whoever wanted him dead that week already yelling.

“What the hell are you trying to prove?” he demanded. Chewbacca whuffed out something quelling and reached for Han’s bloody shoulder, but _of course_ her husband wasn’t having any of it.

“I’m not trying to prove anything, Han!” Leia shouted. The baby gabbled a soft noise and smacked his lips, so she handed him to his father. “If you had cared about what we called him, you’d have cared enough to make it home before we named him!” 

The baby could tell she was lying even if his father couldn’t, because he started fussing immediately. Luke still hadn’t made it in to visit, and Leia wished that he’d been there instead of Han.

And she’d thought her irrationality would subside with her pregnancy hormones.

“And don’t give me that bantha crap about it having been _important_ ,” she yelled, to cover up for her son’s responsiveness. “ _This_ was important! You couldn’t even bother to come along when your thrice-damned offspring was due any day--”

“If he’s thrice-damned, it’s because _you_ saddled him with the most ridiculous name in the entire galaxy!” Han edged in. 

Leia gasped, trying to find her balance, and promptly burst into messy tears. The baby took that as his cue and started wailing too, and Leia buried her face in her hands and didn’t bother trying to control herself.

*** 

Leia was not one to let maternity change the way she operated. Her son was breastfed, of course, and she had every intention of breastfeeding him for the medical academy-recommended two years.

The first time she scooped him up in the middle of a speech to the Senate and helped him latch made holonews for days. 

The twelfth time, not so much. 

***

Leia often wondered if the fact that she couldn’t stop anyone she knew from calling her son Ben was just an early sign of her failure as a mother. There would be years she would spend tracing her mistakes back as far as walking in on her brother changing his nephew and calling him Ben, or further, to the solid sure grip of the Grand Vizier and the way he told her to breathe.

Ben, she would conclude, was a penance that Obi-Wan Organa-Solo should never have been.

At the time, though, Luke hadn’t even looked up from her son’s diaper when he said, “Look, I’m sure Obi-Wan would have been extremely honored, Leia, but it’s really kind of a large name for such a little youngling.”

“Han put you up to this,” she accused, and when he shrugged, she turned on her heel to find her husband. 

Han caught her by the waist and let her waste her anger on trying to escape before he kissed her once, twice, and then said, “Even the old man hated that name. He went by Ben for 20 years. You can’t honestly think it’s that disrespectful!”

It was the first time she realized Han hadn’t called her Your Highness since their son had been born.

She tried not to wonder what it meant.

***

The day his first tooth came in, her son bit her bloody, and she never fed him on the senate floor again.

The following week, with Han on some mission or other that she was not given notice of, she held the son who had practically weaned himself and rocked him and rocked him while he fussed at her and wouldn’t sleep.

“Benny-baby,” she called him where no one could know but her. “Benny-mine, won’t you please sleep for your mother?”

The nickname felt like a lie, because even before he’d been born, she’d known her son could not be hers.

Ben fussed and fussed and dawn found them both awake and and angry, but she got them both dressed and to the Senate chambers on time despite everything.

It was the last session Ben ever attended, and she could only hope it was for the best.


End file.
